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Standard of living in Tabi'atstan
The standard of living in Tabi'atstan refers to the level of wealth, comfort, material goods and necessities available to people living in Tabi'atstan. Food Party officials have access to certain eating facilities not available to the public. For instance, the Central Committee office in Qal'eh Manar has three separate dining rooms catering to different ranks of officials, with the quality of food being comparable to very good restaurants outside but sold at much lower prices. The Supreme Court dining system allows for packages of caviar, sturgeon, there expensive fish, and good quality meats to be ordered occasionally, and the Academy of Sciences has its own dining system that is more expensive than ordinary shops but has better quality products. Clothing Wartime rationing of clothing continued until mid-1959, with production being hampered from 1955 to 1959 due to the Great Tabi'atstani Purge. With the beginning of the Eighth Five-Year Plan in 1959 however, greater emphasis was put on the production of consumer goods, and large quantities of clothes in modern styles began to become available to the majority of Tabi'atstani citizens. The production of synthetic fibres for civilian cloths tripled during the Eighth Five-Year Plan. By the mid-1960s, clothing had become a way for Tabi'atstanis to display their relative affluence. Consumer goods Under Kozlov, consumption was only viewed as proper if it was based on rational needs, with these rational needs being defined as those corresponded to attained levels of production and the satisfaction of which would improve one's development and physical and spiritual qualities. Customers were prepared to buy nearly anything provided that the products available did not have defects, with the stocks of shops typically mostly selling out within a day. However, by the time of Rong Jiawang's rule, customers had become more discerning, and what could be described as a consumer society had begun to form, with this being most obvious in the cities. By the 1980s, priority goods included colour TV sets, furniture sets, expensive tableware, carpets, stereo music players, books and fashionable clothes, and families queued outside expensive restaurants previously frequented only by state and party officials. Perhaps most importantly, there was a shift from buying replacement items because they were broken to buying replacements because old items were "outdated" in the eyes of the owners, showing a redefinition of the idea of rational needs. It should be noted that the rise of this consumer society did not mean that Tabi'atstani citizens were turning towards their own private pursuits and away from the public world; in fact, shopping required energy, a variety of skills, and active engagement with the state and society, with consumption forcing people to connect with the state as consumers by shopping in the state retail system, by entering into correspondence with trade agencies and other Party-state organizations, and by deciding how to dispose of their state income. Housing In the early 1960s as part of the Eighth Five-Year Plan, the Tabi'atstani government began construction of new residential buildings to replace old communal apartments from the Lyudin and pre-war eras. The main change in the new separate apartments was that they gave people more privacy as they were designed for single nuclear families, whilst in the old communal apartments one's private space was limited to their bed. Apart from giving people more comfortable surroundings, the new apartments also helped deal with the social and health problems associated with cramming many people of different families into accommodations that were effectively like barracks. Furthermore, the new single family apartments boosted the popularity of the government, as it demonstrated to the Tabi'atstani population that their government did show interest in their wellbeing. The migration of the population to new separate apartments also engendered a new interest in interior decoration, as people became interested in adding their own personal touches to the otherwise standardised apartments. Beginning in the mid-1960s, the state began to seriously consider the issue of noise in homes and began to focus on citizens' need for isolation and tranquillity in their own homes, pushing forward the notion of residential privacy. This was a reversal of the idea of domestic space as an extension of industrial space, with the home now being seen not only as a place to withdraw from the public sphere, but also as an are to exercise individual autonomy. The push away from machine-stuffed utilitarian designs of the early 1960s can be seen in the framework of the government's turn to Tabi'atstani nationalism, with the Rong government giving nationalists state backing, hoping to use nationalist intellectuals as a vehicle to mobilise society. Nationalists were seen as preferable to other groups as their conservatism often rejected reformist liberalism and took a harsh anti-Western stand. However, as prefabricated flats remained the cheapest and quickest way of producing more housing and standard furniture continued to be the cheapest and quickest option for furnishing them, mass construction of housing continued throughout the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, and the economic considerations that had led to standard housing construction could not be so easily discarded. The average size of newly built residential units in Tabi'atstan is 65m2 (700ft2). Due to the fact that a large proportion of the population is Muslim, bathrooms in most government houses have a combination shower and bathtub, as Muslims believe that one must be fully immersed in water to be ritually cleansed. The most privileged groups in Tabi'atstani society have access to larger and generally better quality housing, although the quality depends on the organisation that has paid for it. For instance, housing built for top ranking organisations such as the Central Committee, the Council of Ministers, the GKSB, the Academy of Sciences, and the Ministry of War are built to high standards, are centrally located, and sometimes have cleaning and special delivery services. Elite privileges Party functionaries in the Central Committee apparatus in Qal'eh Manar and the provincial capitals, the heads of party organisations in central ministerial bodies, and party secretaries of prefecture-level administrative subdivisions were known to receive what was often called the "thirteenth month's pay", which was effectively a form of bonus involving an extra month's worth of pay for a year's work. Furthermore, certain senior officials received party packets every month containing 50-100% of their regular salary, with the contents of these packets being exempt from tax. It is thought that the party packet system arose to prevent the salary of those in administrative posts from falling below those in industrial management positions. Since the death of Lyudin, these practices have stopped, and despite rumours to the contrary have not been restarted. Children of the intelligentsia and the ruling elite have easier access to higher quality educational facilities, possibly the most potent advantage enjoyed by them. Expensive private coaching is also available to them, allowing them to get ahead of other students. Certain high-level party workers receive free vouchers for rest homes, with their families being able to join them at discounted prices (spouses pay 25% whilst children and the elderly pay 50% of the regular cost). Selected employees also have access to state dachas, which are considered better built than private ones and do not have the legal issues related to possession or upkeep. Under the leadership of Rong Jiawang, special stipends were created to encourage competition amongst students, with stipends ranging from 50-110 roubles per month, and prizes of up to 2,000 roubles being created. Income distribution Regional imbalances See also *Economy of the USSRT Category:Tabi'atstan Category:Economy of Tabi'atstan